Religion
The Church of Prospera Worshipped among humans throughout Westmarch, Midrun, and Cragholdland, Prospera is a goddess of endless splendour and beauty. She is said to be a lone goddess remaining past the apocalypse, attempting to salvage her creation from their grievous errors. She is depicted as a hulking, curvaceous woman, dressed in a sheer hooded robe, with the stock of a dwarfborn, proportions of a human, and the hands and ears of an elfborn. After events in recent history, worship of Prospera is heavily mistrusted by many Beastfolk. Even today, humanoid supremacist movements in the three kingdoms often are guided along religious lines. Prospera teaches to preserve and create beauty, to display splendour, and she is said to bring fortune, beauty, and glory to her most faithful adherents. Churches are elaborate, extremely expensive buildings, run by an Abbott. The Abbott is at once the building's manager, that specific church's leader and representative, and that specific church's treasurer. Church-builders are said to be blessed before all others by Prospera. The Church of Skrit Worshipped primarily by Ratfolk but also by Mousefolk, Squirrelfolk, and a growing flock of non-rodentians, Skrit is a goddess of resilience, community, and hedonism. She is referred to in feminine language, but is of fluid sex and gender. Depicted nude with a rodentian body, three intertwined tails and three heads (one a squirrelfolk's, one a mousefolk's, one a ratfolk's), her stories heavily feature her as a shapeshifter, the ghost of a mentor or parental figure, or an animal. The Church of Skrit is more metaphorical, with any self-described Priest or Priestess of Skrit often considered as such. Skrit is said to above all else appreciate debate and theology, and it is said that her true doctrine is being developed by the discussions and debates of her Priestesses. Skrit teaches her adherents to pursue goals for the sake of the world, to remain strong and adapt when defeated, to aid strangers, and to share freely of life's luxuries among the world at large. Canis Ancestralism More cultural than religious, worship and respect to one's ancestors is not frequently believed wholeheartedly as religious practice. Moreso, ancestralism pervades a great number of traditions and cultural rites among the Fortlanders, Longhallers, and Tundra Nomads. Drudism Partway between religion and magic, Drudism is the broad, highly varied, and extensive cultural practices of the Henge Folk and Grove Folk. Most commonplace religious practices are also elaborate magical processes. At its core, Drudism is about understanding one's place within the natural and mortal continuum. Due to the highly atomised practices of individual henges and groves, most other practices are too localised to be described in any useful detail. Elementalism Like Drudism, Elementalism blurs the lines between religious and magical practice. With clear origins in the Bronze and Steel Period, Elementalists believe magical practice to be evidence of the gifts of gods. Less interested in adhering to an established canon, Elementalists seek to find validation and growth in the teachings of the Elementals, as well as try and find divinity elsewhere in magic. Elementalists believe in ten gods, the source of all active elemental magic. They are: Four parents: * Igni, Fire. Quick to anger, passionate and righteous. * Aqui, Water. Mercurial and emotional, often both loving care and screaming anguish. * Terri, Earth. Stern and unloving, but strong and generous. * Auri, Air. Distant and diaphanous, perfectly calm and calculating. And their six children: * Thundri, Lightning; child of Igni and Auri. Deathly still and controlled or explosive, never between the two. * Vitri, Acid; child of Igni and Aqui. Destructive and vengeful. * Iss, Ice; child of Aqui and Auri. Enlightened, honesty under deliberate barriers. * Necrosi, Poison and Life; child of Aqui and Terri. A single deity with two unbreakably interwoven purviews. The intermediary between lush life and barren waste. Liar, manipulator. * Mani, Force and the Hand; child of Auri and Terri. Silent and invisible when not purposefully firm and manifest. * Animi, Pain and the Consciousness; child of Igni and Auri. Atomised, the whole of the vast world's thinking minds. Elementalists don't really "worship" these deities - many, if anything, are to be cautioned against and respected. Many Elementalists see Necrosi as the force that drives Drudic magic, Mani as the force that drives ritual magic, and Animi as the force that drives shapeshifting. Many elementalists don't believe alchemy to be any particular manifestation, instead simply a process to utilise existing magic differently. Planar creatures and magic remain hotly debated.